The worst thing in life is narcissism, believing that you’re the only one out there or that you’re the only one that could possibly do the job. For the team on Leverage, the mastermind, grifter, thief, fighter, and hacker, they work together so uniquely that they wrongfully assume they were the only one, well, all but one.In tonight’s episode, “The Two Live Crew Job”, Nate’s (Timothy Hutton) team is hired by an older couple looking to retrieve a priceless painting that has been stolen from them. Little do they know that the group that has stolen the painting is the opposite of them. While Nate’s crew is assembled essentially to do good, the other team is assembled to pull off cons. It’s headed up by a grifter that at one time had worked with Sophie (Gina Bellman).
Nate’s crew tries to stage a break-in to steal a different painting to see how it would be done, and finds out the other team was there before them, and threw them off by replacing the painting with a painting of dogs playing poker. While the dog painting isn’t a classic like what we would think of as a classic, like the Mona Lisa or something by Vincent van Gogh, everyone knows what it is, so isn’t that still a classic?
Staking out the museum, each person on Nate’s team is met up by their counterpart from the other team, and instantly knows the other’s moves, but is also held back in their own, as their counterpart knows theirs as well. Nate goes head-to-head with the other grifter who doubles as the mastermind (Griffin Dunne), and Hardison (Aldis Hodge) gets his hacking hacked by another hacker (Wil Wheaton). In addition, Parker (Beth Riesgraf) gets her phone stolen from the other thief, and Eliot (Christian Kane) meets up another fighter who knows his every move in the fight.
If all goes well, each of the two teams should become better at what they do, just by being challenged by one of their own. Yet, the interesting perspective remains throughout, that one team is assembled to do good, while the other is assembled to do bad. Yet, each one on Nate’s team initially acquired their skill to do bad. Will this lure them back to that?